Binta Blyden

I would say my willingness to take on just about anything you throw at me. I've always remained flexible and agile, ready to learn and absorb anything possible, and I put passion into everything I do. I've had mentors and good leaders who encouraged me and helped me to grow, and the support of family and friends who have encouraged me as well. But individually, if I were to say what I did that attributed to my success, it's that I've absolutely always remained flexible and agile to learn and develop and grow. I believe there is nothing you cannot learn. You may not be an expert at it right away, you may not be the SME for it, but if you go into a role and integrate yourself, you put yourself in a position to be more well-rounded. That's been the key to my entire career.

The best career advice I ever received came from an old leader at the firm. I love to stay busy, and I was jumping into anything and everything, but she told me that even though I wanted to have a focal point and something to really hone in on and focus, I should always remain agile. That was a catalyst for my entire career. Always remain agile and flexible. To learn, to grow, to learn and to experience what's outside of your comfort zone. That's the fastest way to flourish, and that's what people would appreciate the most. She would throw a lot of things at me that I had no clue what I was doing, but I was the type of person with that mindset where, well, I may not know it, but I'm going to learn it. That's why when you're talking to me right now, you hear that I've done life insurance, graphics, operations, policies, because I do like to remain agile. If there's even a spark of interest, I'm gonna learn about it. I'm gonna figure it out how to do it. I've never been afraid of a challenge when it comes to work.

I would give them the same advice that I got about agility and being able to stretch yourself and be flexible to take on whatever gets thrown at you. I think that's so key. As a woman in an industry, no matter what that industry is, we are more scrutinized than our male counterparts. The expectations from us are higher. It's unfortunate that we have to work 10 times harder to prove our capabilities, but we do. So yes, take it on. Take on whatever you can to learn and develop and grow. Do not be afraid to take on challenges or take on things that are outside of your scope of expertise. I believe that there is nothing you cannot learn. You may not be an expert at it right away, you may not be the SME for it, but if you do that, you put yourself in a position to be more well-rounded. Don't be afraid to experience and take on things that are outside your scope of what you do. All that learning and integration makes you better able to communicate and understand different facets of the business. Going into roles and really learning and integrating yourself in different areas, even if it's not your main job, helps you become more intelligent and effective in everything you do. Experience. Don't be afraid to experience.

The biggest challenges I've faced in my career were when I was managing teams of people. There were often times where you feel like you just can't get it right. When you're dealing with certain staff that don't come with the same amount of will and drive that maybe you have, it's something that tends to pull you back and becomes a huge challenge. When you're dealing with difficult employees, or dealing with those where you know they have the potential, you know they can do it, but they're just not getting over that hump, or they have too much entitlement, that was a huge challenge for me in my career. Sometimes it can be very exhausting. I'm a very passionate person, and I like to see other people do well. So when you're fighting and dealing with different personalities and different types of ways that I had to interact, I had to be a chameleon and change my personality so many times for all these different employees. I also had to fight my own personal emotional attachment to the development of these folks. Sometimes I had to draw a hard line, and I didn't want to, because I knew they could do better, and I just needed them to have another chance, but there were times where you just can't. Those ups and downs and challenges were things that I went through, dealing with having to report to someone who may have a different mindset on how to manage, so I had to kind of be that bridge between the two and balance their needs against the employee needs. I was very much that middle manager, having to balance what the goal of the company is and what the goal of our leadership team was, and then also balancing what the needs of the employees, what resources they need to be able to be successful, and managing how busy they were on a day-to-day, and managing their responsibilities and schedules. It was a time. There was a lot of stress there.

The values that are most important to me are integrity and honesty. When I work with you, I need to be able to know that I can trust you, and that you'll be honest and straightforward with me. That, for me, is huge. My big theme is also creativity. If anybody knows me, they will say, yeah, creativity is her thing. I'm always looking for some creative way to do it, some new way to do something. Think outside of the box, get innovative, and all of that. So that's a huge value for me: integrity, honesty, creativity. In everyday life and even in business, you have to be able to bring humor into the things that you do. Humor, be able to bring a smile. The last thing is just service. I have been in a service-oriented environment and service mindset my entire career. I'm extremely passionate about that. I would say that's probably my top one. Everything else is secondary. I'm a very service-minded person, helping people with things that maybe I can't even help myself with. I always managed a lot of employees, and I focus more on their development than my own. I like to see other people succeed. I like to see other people benefit from whatever it is that they're seeking out benefits for. I'm very passionate about customer service. It is probably one of the most critical things for me. If anything to make me upset is to see poor service to people, poor service to clients or customers, poor communication to people. I do get very, very, very passionate about that.